


Like a Horse and Carriage

by Traincat



Category: Fantastic Four (Comicverse), Spider-Man (Comicverse)
Genre: Crack, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Idiots in Love, M/M, Marriage, Pining, fafsa scam married
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-04
Updated: 2016-06-04
Packaged: 2018-07-12 02:06:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7080235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Traincat/pseuds/Traincat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Peter gets down on his knees on Friday night, it’s not exactly in the context Johnny would’ve liked.</p><p>“Oh my god what,” he says. Then, eyes catching up with his brain, “Why the hell are you holding a twist tie.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The FAFSA scam married fic! Originally posted over at tumblr. I'm pretty sure this is not how the FAFSA actually works, but hey, one of these guys lights on fire and the other has the proportional strength of a spider. It's not the most unrealistic thing here. Though, on a whole, this is deeply, deeply ridiculous.
> 
> With deepest thanks and much love to myvisagewasted for the idea, and to various tumblr anons for asking about what happened during/before/after. Credit to pommenade for the alternate title to this fic: Love in the Time of Debt.

When Peter gets down on his knees on Friday night, it’s not exactly in the context Johnny would’ve liked.

“Oh my god what,” he says. Then, eyes catching up with his brain, “Why the hell are you holding a twist tie.”

The twist tie is shaped like a ring and Peter’s got that kind of single-minded intensity on his face that usually means someone’s going to prison. Johnny can’t feel his face.

“Jonathan Spencer Storm,” Peter says, “will you do me the honor of marrying me for the increased FAFSA money?”

It’s the first time anyone’s ever asked Johnny to marry them and either the best or worst moment of his life. It’s hard to decide.

“Okay,” he says, very slowly. His ears are ringing, an endless tinny echo of _will you marry me_. For the fucking FAFSA, he tells his heart, which does not give one single damn and is already picking out the flowers (roses, a classic), where they’ll take the photos (Central Park) and who Ben will be sitting between at the reception (J Jonah Jameson and Reed’s weird dad).

Peter’s still down on one knee, holding Johnny’s hand with infinite gentleness, asking him to marry him - but for the FAFSA. The world is unfair.

“You know we could just like,” Johnny says, head spinning, “find you a scholarship right? Sue handles a million of those.”

“That’s nepotism,” Peter says, surprisingly judgmental for a man on the floor asking his BFF to be his lawfully wedded husband, til graduation or masked vigilante activity-related death did they part.

“That’s life,” Johnny tells him. “But you’ll marry me?”

“Absolutely,” Peter says. Johnny loves him, but wow has he been hit in the head a few times too many.

Johnny takes five whole seconds to imagine a version of himself who would do the sensible thing and laugh in Peter’s face. A better him.

Instead, he says, “well mazel tov to me then,” and lets Peter slide the twist tie onto his finger.

Sue is going to murder him.

 

* * *

 

“You can’t throw rice anymore,” Peter says days later. He sounds tired, which Johnny is sure has nothing to do with the fact that he ambushed Peter at 3 AM to talk about their upcoming scam wedding. “Pigeons eat it and it's not good for them and then I have to see that while I’m out swinging, stopping purse snatchers and getting blamed for murder.”

“You suck all the fun out of everything,” Johnny says.

“Stop with the flattery and let me see that seating chart,” Peter says, making grabby hands. Johnny hands it over in all its color-coded glory; finally he’s done something dramatic enough to make Sue break out the good Post-Its. “You put my aunt next to the Jamesons? Are you out of your tiny mind?!"

 

* * *

 

Peter’s aunt wants to the plan the wedding, which is a problem because Sue also wants to the plan the wedding, and Ben won’t stop telling Johnny about his cousin who lives in Brooklyn and once worked as a wedding planner in the ‘80s.

“She can get you a good deal on the cake, is all I’m sayin’,” Ben says, shaking out his newspaper. “She can get it fast, too. Just sayin’.”

Ben has been ‘just saying’ a lot of things lately. Johnny glowers at him from across the table.

“Because you've got a month to get this wedding off the ground,” Ben continues. “And that’s crazy.”

Johnny contemplates drowning himself in his cereal bowl. “Yes, Ben, thank you. I get it.”

“Just lettin’ you know your options,” he says, rocky brows raised. “Hey. Who’s your best man?”

Who’s Johnny’s best man, he asks. Like he doesn’t already know. Johnny lobs a piece of cereal at the sports page.

“Heh,” says Ben with a big grin Johnny pretends he doesn't see. "You're alright, kid."

A moment of silence, and then, “Muriel can get you a good deal on flowers, too. You kids want flowers?”

Johnny sets the Bugle's sports section on fire.

 

* * *

 

Sue wants the wedding in the Hamptons. May wants the wedding at the family home in Queens, which is ridiculous, because where will King T’Challa’s royal delegation sit? Johnny just wants the wedding over with already and Peter - Peter refuses to be torn from New York even long enough to say, “I do.”

“Maybe we could elope?” Peter asks hopefully. Johnny, in his role as FAFSA scam co-conspirator/future husband, laughs in his face. Peter sighs. “That’s a no, huh?”

“At the very least, I am getting cake out of this loveless marriage,” Johnny says. He flops backward. They’re sitting up on Lady Liberty like usual, and the night sky up above is just endless stars. It still throws Johnny, sometimes: he’s been up there. It makes him feel both impossibly tall and very small. “I’ll talk to Sue, see if she can pull some strings, maybe get us a nice ballroom somewhere.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been in a ballroom,” Peter says. He’s sitting close; their shoulders had been pressed together before, and his leg is still touching Johnny’s. Johnny closes his eyes and lets himself pretend. “Thanks for doing this, Torch.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Johnny says.

Peter’s quiet for a minute. “We’re going to have to kiss, right? For the ceremony. Is that… are you okay with that?”

Johnny thinks about saying, we don’t have to. Thinks about giving Peter an out.

“Doesn’t bother me if it doesn’t bother you,” he says instead. He watches as Peter shrugs. It's careless and elegant, like everything about Peter when he's not bothering to pretend. It's ridiculous, how Johnny's in love with the little things: a shrug, a flutter of long brown eyelashes, the freckle on a prominent collarbone, the sharp elbows and knees and knobby ankles. “I promise to keep the tongue to a minimum.”

“Thanks,” Peter says, dry.

 

* * *

 

When they do kiss at the reception, it’s just a light peck.

Their families are out there in the front row – Sue is blowing her nose on Reed’s sleeve, he’s pretty sure, and Ben broke out the monogrammed handkerchief somewhere around “to celebrate the union of,” the big softie. Peter’s aunt is watching him like she might murder him, which is fair. Harry Osborn looks similarly unimpressed. T’Challa and Wyatt have made themselves into a pair of ridiculously tall, good-looking friends, and there’s a huge crate from Latveria back at the Baxter Building. It smells like orchids and Reed spent the whole morning assuring Johnny that it wouldn’t explode.

Peter’s lips are dry and soft, his hands still and cool and gentle where they hold Johnny's. Johnny doesn’t know why he’s disappointed when it’s not like he could expect anything more.

“Hope this is worth it,” he whispers, but he’s not sure whether he’s talking to Peter or himself.

The ring is a warm, heavy weight on his finger. It feels different than he thought it would.

 

* * *

 

They’ve been the holiest form of married - the one to scam the FAFSA out of a measly few extra bucks - for a few weeks the first time Johnny takes advantage.

‘Taking advantage’ here translates to ‘barging into his husband’s study meeting to make himself a general nuisance.’ Oh, how the mighty have fallen. He is a sad, sad shell of a man now. He hopes the hero community will remember him the way he was.

“Hey, honey,” he sings, letting himself into Peter’s apartment. “I’m home!”

“Why are you doing this to me?” his loving, FAFSA-scheming husband demands. Peter's hair is stuck up at all angles and there’s a neon green highlighter smudge across one cheek. He looks like he got hit by a bus, which, knowing him, might be the truth.

Johnny adores him unconditionally.

“Why are you here?” the man of his dreams asks.

“I’m here because this is my beloved’s apartment, where I frequently am, because we are. So. Very. Married,” Johnny reminds him, kicking the door shut.

“Right,” Peter says, sounding a little off-kilter. “Just – the most married.”

What the jazz hands are for, Johnny doesn’t know, because it’s not like anyone’s looking at Peter anyway. Every pair of eyes in the study group are instantly and rightfully on him. Even Harry Osborn, who’s looking at Johnny like he’s something the cat dragged in, can't help but stare.

“It’s not his apartment, it’s my apartment, and I think I would know if you were here all the time,” Osborn says. He’s made it pretty clear he doesn’t believe in the sanctity of Peter and Johnny’s beautiful union.

The urge to set his ridiculous hair on fire is overwhelming.

“C’mon, Har, you know we didn’t want to bother you with the mushy newlyweds act,” Peter says, rolling his eyes.

Johnny blows him a kiss. Peter, never one to be outdone once he's in the swing of things, actually mimes catching it out of the air.

Harry Osborn looks appalled.

Johnny cackles his way into the kitchen and comes back with a sandwich, which he sets down in front of Peter. Everyone’s still staring at him – and how come every girl Peter knows is such a drop dead stunner? The guys aren’t half bad, either. How the hell does he do it when he looks like he’s running on caffeine and pure, unfiltered stubbornness all the time? – so Johnny preens a little bit. He can’t help it; it’s who he is.

“Eat it,” he tells Peter, brushing a probably-too-much-but-what’s-the-point-if-you-can’t-live-a-little kiss against Peter’s cheek and squeezing his shoulder.

Peter sends a quizzical if amused glance his way, then one down at the sandwich. It’s his favorite, which Johnny only knows because of too many late nights at the usual place. Let no one ever say he’s not a model spouse.

“Thanks,” Peter tells him, smiling that real, genuine smile, crooked and too wide. Johnny’s whole being is instantly electric.

“No problem,” he says. “I don’t feel like being a widower for at least a year. I’ll be in your room – see ya, nerds.”

He leaves the door open a crack, though, just so he can hear everyone start whisper-yelling questions about his hot new celebrity husband Peter’s way. Johnny stretches his arms high above his head, cracking his knuckles.

It’s good to be him.

 

* * *

 

That’s the spark that lights the fire, and everything just spirals from there.

Peter calls Johnny sweetheart over dinner (pizza eaten on the floor of Chez Parker-Osborn) and Harry looks like he wants to evict both of them, which just makes Johnny flutter his eyelashes harder as he leans forward to swipe pizza sauce from the corner of Peter’s mouth with his thumb.

Johnny starts dropping ‘babe’ into conversations, like they’re really a couple. “Hey babe, gonna be late tonight,” he’ll tell Peter’s voicemail, or, “Babe, Sue’s making me go to this show with her, you can’t abandon me now.”

Peter doesn’t abandon him, but he does call Johnny “sugar lambkins” in the middle of the night’s conversation and makes Sue snort white wine up her nose.

“Sugar lambkins?” Johnny repeats. “Really?”

“Darling dearest heart,” Peter continues. “Honeybunches. Angel buns.”

“You’re a dead man,” Johnny tells him cheerfully.

Peter drapes his arm casually over Johnny’s shoulders and croons, “Whatever you say, my sweet love koala.”

Ben hears that one and chokes on a salmon mousse cracker. His tiny girlfriend Alicia has to pound both of her fists on his back before he hacks it back up.

Johnny, endlessly thoughtful, hires a minstrel to show up at the ESU campus and serenade Peter on his birthday. Peter complains that If Ever I Would Leave You is stuck in his head for a month. Johnny hears him warbling it in the shower one morning after Peter crawled through his window at 4 AM. "Married privileges," he'd said, grinning up at Johnny while Johnny cursed and swabbed at the sluggishly bleeding cut on his forehead. Johnny presses his face against his pillow and listens to Peter caterwaul.

Peter, a complete joy of a husband, couldn’t ask for better, waits a whole month for Johnny to drop his guard before he sends in the clowns. Literally.

“I hate you,” Johnny declares, throwing himself down into Peter’s space. He’s still tasting banana cream.

“You love me,” Peter retorts and doesn’t bat an eyelash.

Yeah, that’s the part that’s terrible: Johnny really does.

 

* * *

 

Sue cries at Peter’s graduation, which Johnny thinks is maybe a bit much. Telling her that’s a mistake, though, because all she does is say, “don’t talk to me, dropout,” and then blows her nose on the Kleenex Ben holds out.

Johnny’s life is suffering.

Peter accepts his diploma, grin brighter than the sun, and waves in the direction he knows they’re sitting. Johnny waves back, even though Peter probably can’t see it. His throat feels a little tight.

“You need a tissue, too, Sparky?” Ben asks him.

“I’ll roast you like a kabob, Mount Rushmore,” Johnny replies without looking at him. He can’t take his eyes off of Peter. It’s awful.

“I’m free!” Peter says when they meet back up, laughing and easy. Johnny’s heart beats double time just looking at him, and even harder when Peter grabs him up in a hug, lifting Johnny off his feet for a split-second before he remembers where they are.

“Yeah, babe,” Johnny says, telling himself he’s got to get his fill of all the petnames they’ve mysteriously accumulated over the last two years. He presses his nose into Peter’s messy hair. “You did it.”

Peter did it, and now Johnny’s about to be a divorcee. See, this is why he hates academia.

“Watch the shoulder,” Peter says, grinning. The shoulder in question has to be watched because he dislocated it a few days before, and Johnny’s the one who caught him trying to set it himself with a wall and grim determination and yelled at him for nearly half an hour before he agreed to seek Real Actual Medical Attention.

In sickness and in health, they’ve got down. It’s the ‘til death do they part that’s the issue.

 

* * *

 

The thing is, Peter never actually brings up their inevitable divorce. Johnny keeps waiting for it, even drops a couple terrifically unsubtle hints, but Peter doesn’t take the bait, and he doesn’t start the conversation. So Johnny kind of doesn’t either.

Well, he does, once, when movie night runs late and they’re sitting in the dark in front of one of Johnny’s favorite horror movies.

On screen a sorority girl’s about to get chainsawed and, his heart feeling the same way, Johnny finally manages to voice it: “Hey. Pete. Do you think we should get that divorce paperwork started?”

Peter’s only answer is a terrific snore.

Johnny’s personally willing to live the scam, but then Ben has to go and do the worst thing he possibly can: call Johnny’s bluff.

“You and the webhead?” he scoffs. “You’re never getting divorced. You two loveboids’ll be playing this game ‘til you’re 90.”

It’s the challenge that always gets to Johnny, sparks off that first dangerous flicker in his chest. The second, far more literal flicker, on the other hand? That one starts in Ben’s underwear drawer.

Johnny goes to their lawyers.

“It’s about my marriage,” he says, twisting the ring – the real ring, the one Reed and Sue got them as gifts – around his finger.

“Ah,” says Franklin Nelson, partner at Nelson & Murdock, Sue’s chosen law firm, though why Johnny has no idea. “Young love. The sweetest song.”

“I want to file for divorce,” Johnny says.

The silence is painful.

“Well now I feel like a jerk,” Mr. Nelson says.

“Me too,” Johnny admits.

“Look, I’ll have someone bring you some coffee and,” Mr. Nelson waves a hand, “I’ll get started on that for you.”

“Thanks,” Johnny says, feeling small.

He takes the papers, and he goes to Peter and Harry’s apartment, and he sits at the breakfast bar and waits for Peter to notice.

“Movie script?” Peter asks, uncapping a water bottle. “Because don’t get me wrong, you’re great to look at, but then you open your mouth and –”

“They’re divorce papers,” Johnny cuts him off. “For us. Actually.”

There’s a long, horrible moment where Peter just blinks at him. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” Johnny says, shoulders hunched. “I figured we should get the ball rolling on that one. Free us both from the shackles, you know.”

“Right,” Peter says, staring at the paperwork. His mouth’s down turned, his expression’s grim. Johnny knows better, but – it’s almost like Peter’s disappointed. “I’ll just. Get a pen.”

Then he disappears for fifteen minutes. Johnny spends it trying to figure out the best angle for a Signing Divorce Papers selfie. It doesn’t matter; he looks depressed in all of them, and not cool, aloof, I Listen To Old Music depressed, either. Unsuited for Instagram depressed. Unsuited for TWITTER depressed.

Peter returns looking guilty. “I don’t have any pens. Do you have a pen?”

“Look at these jeans,” Johnny says, gesturing. “Does it look like I have room for a pen?”

“Um,” says Peter, eloquently. “Anyway. Guess I’ll have to sign them later.”

“Guess so,” Johnny says, feeling numb and a little relieved. He shouldn’t feel relieved. He should feel relieved when this is all over and done and signed and when he takes the ring off his finger. But he doesn’t want to do any of that.

“I have a pen,” Harry’s voice calls from the living room. “I have like eighteen pens. You guys need a pen?”

“You don’t have any pens,” Peter shouts back. “You lost them all in that tragic pen fire, REMEMBER?”

“Tragic pen fire?” Johnny repeats, eyebrows raised. Peter shifts his weight and refuses to meet his eyes.

“Look, I’ve gotta go, I’ve got work,” he says, and then, bizarrely, he reaches over, cupping one hand to Johnny’s face. He presses a kiss to Johnny's cheek, a soft drag of his lips. It’s not something they do in private, where there’s no one to put on a show for. Johnny’s heart clenches, his stomach twists, and he thinks - oh.

But then Peter’s gone out the door.

“Oh,” Johnny lets himself say out loud to the echoing kitchen.

“I hate both of you!” Harry calls from the living room. “End this charade!”

Yeah. Johnny guesses he should probably do that.

 

* * *

 

Which is how he ends up crashing Peter’s fight with a guy dressed like a wizard in the middle of a thunderstorm. Of fucking course.

“I’m handling it!” Peter shouts when Johnny streaks across the sky, diving for the roof.

“Well then I can’t hurt, can I?” Johnny shouts back.

“You always do this!” Peter says. “You never give me time to just – figure things out!”

“Oh, I never give you time?” Johnny says. “I never give YOU time? Whose stupid FAFSA scheme was this?”

“Am I interrupting something?” the wizard (but notably not the Wizard) asks.

“No!” Peter and Johnny shout at the same time.

“Cool,” says the wizard, and he hits Johnny with a hex. Johnny’s blood feels like it’s turned to ice, his flames splutter and fail, and he plummets from the eight feet above roof level he was hovering at so he could scream at Peter from both a moral and literal high point.

Peter catches him last second, the breath knocked from Johnny’s lungs, and then dumps him unceremoniously on the ground as he flings himself at the wizard.

“Watch where you’re throwing that!” Peter says. “That’s my – that’s somebody’s husband! Probably!”

It’s a real smooth recovery. Johnny, shivering on the ground, is the opposite of proud. He knows the second the magic guy’s unconscious because he can feel his powers flood their way back through his veins.

Peter kneels down on the ground next to him and helps him to his feet.

“Am I?” Johnny asks, arms around Peter’s neck. It’s raining, and this close to Peter he can’t flame on to keep himself dry. He licks rain water from his lips, and maybe it’s his imagination – it’s so hard to tell with the mask in the way – but he thinks Peter’s staring at his mouth.

“Are you what?” Peter says. “A colossal moron?”

“Somebody’s husband,” Johnny says. “You’re the colossal moron.”

Peter reaches up to yank the mask up over his mouth and nose and then he’s kissing Johnny something fierce, spinning him around. Johnny’s fingers dig into his shoulders as he kisses back.

“I’m not divorcing you,” Peter says when they break apart. Johnny laughs, catching Peter’s face between his hands so he can kiss him again.

“That’s sweet, babe,” he says. “But we kind of have to, because I bet Ben five thousand dollars and some very embarrassing stunts at the UN.”

Peter groans.


	2. Chapter 2

Johnny and Peter get quietly divorced on the hottest day in July and as a result Ben’s the one who has to pretend like he sees an evil monkey on Doom’s shoulder when good ol’ Victor makes his once yearly trip to terrify the UN.

Johnny and Peter turn right around and get remarried in October when they crash land in Atlantic City after a failed alien invasion.

In Johnny’s defense, it’s not like he planned any of this.

 

* * *

 

They’re lying exhausted on the shore, both staring up at the sky. Johnny’s so thrilled to be alive he doesn’t even care that he’s in New Jersey.

Peter holds out his hand and Johnny takes it automatically.

“I’ve been thinking,” Peter says.

“Well, stop,” Johnny tells him. Peter snorts. He rolls up onto his elbows - how he manages it, Johnny has no idea, because he for one is never getting up again - and looks down at Johnny. His hair is stuck to his forehead with sea water and he’s got a split lip. Johnny’s never been more in love with him than in this moment, and Johnny’s been pretty ridiculously in love with him since they were eighteen.

“Listen, hey, I love you,” Peter says, grinning his dopey, crooked grin. It's the kind of smile that would make Johnny believe he could fly, if he couldn't already. “So let’s get married again. Right here, right now. What do you say?”

Johnny says yes. Of course he says yes.

 

* * *

 

It takes Johnny a long moment to figure out what wakes him. He’s too comfortable to care at first, in a huge soft bed under fluffy covers with Peter pressed up close behind him, legs tangled, Peter’s arm thrown over his waist. Peter’s snoring a little; it’s adorable.

Johnny’s twenty-three, he’s in love, and he can feel his husband’s new wedding ring where Peter’s fingers curl possessively at his hip. He’s so happy he doesn’t know what to do with himself.

Which is when he realizes that it’s his phone that’s been ringing for the past five minutes, and that’s his lawyer’s ringtone blaring.

“Hey, Double D,” he says, because one of the things he’s learned between July and now - probably the second most important thing, right after the fact that his husband loves him - is that the family lawyer in Daredevil. It’s pretty cool. “What’s hangin’?”

“Did you remarry Peter Parker in Atlantic City last night,” Matt Murdock says, not a question.

Johnny gropes for Peter’s hand under the covers, running this thumb over his ring. Peter shifts behind him, mumbling incoherently. Johnny says, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t you,” says Murdock. “I guess I should put your sister on the line. She’s busy yelling at my law partner and drinking all the coffee in my office.”

Johnny contemplates his options.

“Alright, Matt,” he says. “I’ll level with you: I may have remarried Peter Parker in Atlantic City last night.”

“Mmhmm,” says Matt, unimpressed.

“We’re young, we’re in love, we weren’t murdered by aliens,” Johnny says. Peter shifts behind him, pressing up against Johnny, lean and hot and hard. He’s drifting into wakefulness if the way he’s kissing Johnny’s neck is any indication. “And some of us are on the phone, thank you, Mr. Storm.”

“Mr. Parker,” Peter murmurs, apparently totally uncaring about the whole phone issue. He’s got wandering hands. Johnny could not possibly be happier.

“Urgh,” says Matt. He gives them strict instructions to be back in Manhattan in three hours or less and then hangs up, sounding disgusted.

Three hours, Johnny thinks, pulling Peter properly down on top of him, is a lot of time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted [here](http://traincat.tumblr.com/post/141011166459/traincat-myvisagewasted-au-where-peter), [here](http://traincat.tumblr.com/post/143192037294/the-married-for-fafsa-ficlet-did-they-have-a) and [here!](http://traincat.tumblr.com/post/143977819539/i-love-your-au-where-peter-marries-johnny-for-the) Come hang out with me on [tumblr](traincat.tumblr.com)!


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